ATC365 - #004 - FEAR

Oh my! That was hard! Took me ages to find a suitable image for this theme! However, this sentiment stamp came to the rescue. It is by Andy Skinner. I was making a note book today for a gift with this lovely orange card and the dragon fly stamp set was already out on my desk. I think these stamps were a free gift with one of the myriad of magazines I subscribe to. I will publish a shot of the  finished notebook once it has been gifted, wouldn't want to spoil their surprise!

So here we are, the fourth ATC in my 365 day challenge. Hope you like it. I am really pleased with the result, but then I do love black and orange as a combo.

#004 - FEAR

The background is Dylusions and a sunburst stencil. The wings of the dragonfly have been bleached out and the image and sentiment are embossed in black.

Keep on keeping on! 4 down, 361 to go!

Happy days! XX 

ATC365 - Day 3

I know it is only Day #3 but I am really enjoying this journey. Are you?

So today the little old random word generator gave me LANTERN.  I pondered my choices and opted for another floral stamp. This is a lovely stamp from Lavinia Stamps of those papery orange lanterns that are the seed heads of Physalis alkekengi  more commonly known as the Japanese Lantern plant. According to Wiki it is also known as the bladder cherry! Not very flattering, I'm going to stick with Japanese lantern I think.

#003 LANTERN

As you know I keep all my scraps and this one is a a very old piece which was left over from one of my DT makes for Visible Image. I put 3 shades of ink onto an acrylic block, spritzed it with water and stamped it onto a piece of water colour card. 

The image is stamped in black embossing powder and the lanterns are coloured with orange Brusho. I also used a Visible Image stamp, Bronte Script, in a pale blue to break up the background a bit. Some doodling around the edges and a bit of shading and hi-lighting finishes it off.

Hope you like it? 

Happy days! XX 

ATC365 - Day 2

Well, so far so good! Managed to get my second ATC done as well as taking a long walk on the beach and doing the 'big' shop! It is a beautiful sunny day here if a little cold. Here is the proof of the walk on the beach. You will just have to believe me when I say that I went shopping!

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The word that the random word generator (HERE) gave me today was THISTLE and here is my ATC. OK, for those of you that know the difference, this is in fact a teasel. I have just been to the Woodware web site to double check it was one of their stamps so I could mention them in this post and was shocked to see my mistake! Oh well, it is still a prickly beast and that is enough for me!

#002 - THISTLE

I used a scrap piece of water colour card which I had coloured with Dylusions. The image is black embossing powder and the highlighting is done with bleach. The word is on a piece of thick tracing paper and attached using black staples. 

Hope you like?

Happy Days! x

My ATC365 Challenge 2015

Happy New Year to you all! 

I have been pondering recently about what I could do during 2015 in the way of an arty-farty 'once-a-day' thing but the desire to do something was easier than the 'deciding what to do' bit.

Should I use a different word to inspire me each day? How would I pick that word, what format would the piece take, should it be in the form of a book, or loose leaves, or cards, or hexagons to make a paper quilt. Oh my! Should I take a photo everyday and be inspired by that, or take a random shot of something close-up, or use a colour combination, or a song title? The ideas went on and on and on!

I finally narrowed the size down to an ATC. I know they are a little dated in format now but I really wanted something small enough to complete the required one a day.

Next was the theme or inspiration source. Sadly I couldn't come up with something myself. For one it was taking up too much time and secondly I didn't want to run the risk of influencing myself on theme choice depending on my latest fad so I opted to use an online creative word generator LINK HERE. You will have to trust me that I will be doing exactly what it says!  I don't want to generate the whole list now and so I will do the generating just before I enter the craft room; no prolonged thinking allowed on this! I want to stretch my creativity.

So today the theme is SCISSORS. 

So, there it is, my first ATC365 project. On my way from the computer to the craft room I was trying to remember what stamps I had to do this, and it was only when I opened up my stamp index that I realised I had the ideal stamp! Thanks Tim Holtz! You made my first ATC365 project a breeze! Phew!

I added a little rule that I must use a scrap of already coloured paper. I have a tendency, no, that is rubbish, I have an obsession with keeping any piece of card/paper that I have coloured and this seems like a good excuse to keep even more bits!

I am happy with the project and happy that I finally managed to come up with a plan! 1 down, 364 to go!

Spread the LOVE! x

Moo Mania #78 Polka Dots

Hello Moo Mania & More followers. I hope you all had a good time over the festive period? I did but it was a close call. I was unwell for a few weeks at the start of December and really didn't feel that Christmas was going to happen. I won't dwell on it, it is history now. Back to crafting - yippeeeee!

So, I missed a couple of themes but you know me, I will catch up with them as soon as I can.

This time the theme is POLKA DOTS. I cut some rainbow coloured card with a funky MemoryBox die but because the paper was slightly too thin I had to shim it and run it through again. It was this process that made me think of using the punched out dots. No! I didn't stick all those tiny dots on. During the cutting the spots became embedded into the piece of paper I had used as a shim and I simply coated the whole thing with clear embossing powder. So I have negative and positive with the blue ones and just a positive with the pink as I had used a really grotty piece of card for the shim and it didn't look very nice! A few contrasting dots and some rainbow thread was added to give more interest. 

OK, I am leaving it there as I need to catch up with a few other crafty things. Hope you have a great New Year and that 2015 is good to you!

Happy days! Kim x

Marvellous Monday with Visible Image

Yes, I know it has been a few weeks since I was last here. Without going into too much detail I needed to rest, Doctors orders, so I did as I was told! Fingers crossed that each new day is a good one for me.

Right, so, where were we? I suppose for my blog followers I should bring you up to date with Visible Image makes that I should have blogged about during my absence!

Just in case you didn't know it, Visible Image released a new set of stamps recently, under the title EXPRESS YOURSELF. These are some of the most amazing 'wordy' stamps out there at the moment! I had such a blast working with them. You know how much I love making backgrounds and these stamps gave me the chance to use some of my favourite pieces of coloured paper to show the stamp off.

Blowing Dylusions Inks

Life is a Journey. I simply placed a drop of Dylusion ink onto the edge of a piece of smooth white card and blew the ink forward with my trusty Tim Holtz puffer. Of course a straw and your own puff would work just as well. I added some further interest by stamping with the polka dots and the ink splats stamps. That bit in the top left corner makes me think of kiwi fruit and the pink band reminds me of dragon fruit!

More Dylusions Inks

Listen to your Heart. This time I used a piece of water colour card which I misted with water before spraying on some vivid Dylusions inks. The heart from the Tin Man set was stamped, cut out and mounted on 3D gel. A simple hand drawn line and dots around the card tie it all together.

Brusho Powder Paints

Life is What you Make It.  Water colour card again, spritzed with water and then painted with some of the deeper Brusho colours. I loved this piece of card so much that I wanted to use every piece of it hence the triple layering and paper ribbon to use up the last scrap! It makes a change to use white embossing powder and I think this is what made the whole thing work so well, the colours really 'pop'.

Dylusions Inks 

Karma.  Such a simple card but pretty effective don't you think? This was an off-cut from something bigger and the hoarder in me kept the piece of card and I am glad I did! Stamping the image over the lightest area really worked. 

Tim Holtz Distress sprays

This is Me. I have a very limited collection of Tim Holtz sprays, mainly in red and pink, and this off-cut was the perfect size for the INKognito gerbera. It was inspired by the card I made for the launch of the INKognito stamps with the off-the-page stamping. I used black embossing powder for all the stamping to give a really intense black image which contrasts well with the reds. Using a white marker I then added some hi-lights. 

Spotty-dotty!

Just be Happy. A simple background made using a toothbrush and Brusho paints. I like to work with my Brushos 'wet'. i.e. ready mixed. I use about a 1/4 of a teaspoon of the powder to make a small amount of paint at a time. To be honest I don't really get on with this sprinkling lark! Anyway, I did the classic splattering using the toothbrush dipped in the paint. Once it was dry I sprayed the Grunge Polka Dot stamp with water and just stamped onto the dry splatters. This caused the paint to become wet again and give these subtle spots. I then used black embossing powder to stamp the dotty part from the INKognito Man stamp for the area under the banner.

"Love the Background!"

Create your Imagination. When this was published by Helen in the Visible Image group I had a few people ask me how I did the background. Hmmm, I had to try and remember!! Well, I have remembered now but I am going to hold off telling you about it as I plan to do a How2 for it in the new year. 

So there we have it! I think I am all caught up now. Hope you all have a lovely time next week, hope you get to be with your loved ones and celebrate. 

Good Heath and Happiness to you all! xx

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Marvellous Monday with Visible Image

Is it starting to feel a little cold where you are? Winter is on its' way. I have so far managed to refrain from getting too Christmassy (is that how you spell it? Spell-check doesn't like any of my attempts to spell it!) but this week I am showing you something I have made which could be a Christmas gift.

NEWS -NEWS - NEWS - NEWS -NEWS - NEWS - NEWS

New stamp release from Visible Image - pre-orders now being taken!

You are going to love this new selection of stamps from Visible Image, 

trust me I have seen them ALL and they are amazing! 

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I am partial to a bit of up-cycling as you know. Remember the little chalkboard cum key rack that I modified recently? Blog post HERE Well, this little drawer unit started out quite plain and uninteresting but I have decorated it using the Revolution stamp set from Visible Image. I picked it up in a charity shop and have had it in my stash for a few months now. I suspect the previous owner used it for storing cotton wool balls in as the inside was a little fluffy to say the least! Anyway, after some sanding down and de-fluffing I set about beautifying it.

I started by giving the whole thing a coat of matt varnish, one with a dye included. Not only did it liven up the dull wood but it also gave me a good base to stamp onto. I have found that stamping directly onto wood can be a bit hit and miss. It can sometimes 'bleed' into the grain and you get a blurry image. OK if you want that look but I needed this to be sharp and crisp as the script stamp is so detailed, I wanted to keep it readable!


Once the varnish was dry I stamped the script using black Stazon ink. Although this usually dries very quickly I left it for an hour before doing the next lot of stamping 'just in case'.

Next I stamped some of the decorative elements using black embossing powder. I admit that it didn't work as I wanted it to. It got lost on the background and so I re-stamped the elements this time using gold embossing powder. This turned out to be a good mistake as this gold over black gives a shadow effect which I really like. Lastly I added some red Stazon swirls.

As the piece is decorated with permanent stamp ink and the embossing is technically waterproof, I opted not to give it another coat of varnish. I was worried that there might be a reaction or that the varnish would cause the ink to bleed. It is obviously not a piece I would recommend to be used in any wet, damp rooms, like a bathroom or a kitchen but I would think this would be perfect for a bedroom for your jewellery, or make-up or even cotton wool balls!

Click HERE to find out how to enter the challenge

This month the theme is Your Favourite Visible Image Stamp.

Click HERE to go to the Facebook group.

Ask to join if you haven't already. 

Click HERE to subscribe to the Newsletter

Click HERE to go to the Visible Image blog to see

DT inspiration projects and check out the Gallery. 

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See you next week for another Marvellous Monday and in the mean time enjoy your week, get crafty and show us what you have been up to!

Happy Days!  Kim J